The short answer
We recommend 18 to 24 months before exam day. Students sit the Victorian selective entry exam in June of Year 8, so that puts the starting line somewhere in Year 6 or early Year 7.
The number surprises families who expect a term or two of cramming, and the reason has little to do with content coverage. Eighteen months is roughly how long it takes for a study method to become a habit, and the method is what moves a score.
Below is the timeline phase by phase, followed by three of the strategies we teach. The strategies matter more than the calendar, so if you read one part of this page, make it .
Why 18 to 24 Months, and Not Six
A six month sprint can cover every topic on the paper. What it cannot do is give a student enough repetitions of the review cycle for their thinking to change, and reasoning is most of what this exam measures.
Reasoning develops slowly
These are not topics to be covered. They improve through repeated exposure over months, which is why a student who meets analogies and number series in Year 7 reads them very differently by the following June.
A habit needs runway
Most students have never studied to a schedule before this. The first month or two of any preparation goes on building that routine, with very little content sticking yet, and a short timeline spends its whole budget there.
Mistakes need time to be revisited
The loop below asks a student to return to questions they got wrong, weeks later, and try them again. A single term leaves no room for it.
Pressure compounds late
Year 8 brings its own school workload. Families who start early arrive at the exam term with the groundwork done and can spend those months on timing and stamina instead.
Starting much earlier than two years out has diminishing returns. A Year 5 student drilling exam papers usually ends up bored of the format long before it counts.
The Fixed Points You Work Back From
Each cycle follows the same shape, and the exact dates shift a little year to year. Look them up on the ACER site for your child's cycle, because a previous year's calendar will be close and still wrong.
Early March
Applications open
Late April
Applications close
Mid June
Exam day
August
First round offers
August to October
Offers process runs
The application window is the only hard deadline a family can miss, and missing it ends the attempt for a whole year no matter how well prepared the student is.
The Timeline, Phase by Phase
24 to 18 months out
Year 6 into early Year 7Foundations, with no exam in sight
Nothing here looks like exam preparation, and it should not. Read widely, get comfortable with number sense and fractions, and build the habit of sitting down to work unprompted. A student who reaches the exam year already reading opinion columns and science journalism for pleasure carries an advantage that no amount of practice papers buys later.
18 to 12 months out
Year 7Meet the format
First contact with the question types, untimed and without pressure. Quantitative reasoning and non-verbal items matter most here, because nothing in the Victorian curriculum resembles them and a student meeting them cold in the exam hall loses marks to surprise rather than to ability. Short sessions, done often, beat a long weekend of catch-up.
12 to 6 months out
Late Year 7 into Year 8Build the routine
A fixed weekly rhythm starts mattering more than the volume of questions. This is also where the review habit below has to become automatic, while there is still enough runway for it to change anything. Writing moves from occasional to weekly, and the vocabulary notebook starts filling.
6 to 3 months out
Year 8, first halfApplications, then the clock
Applications open in early March and close in late April, and missing that window ends the attempt regardless of how well prepared the student is. Practice now moves under time. Expect the first few timed sets to feel like a different exam, because roughly 40 seconds per question is a pace most students have never worked at.
3 months to exam day
Year 8, April to JuneFull papers, exam conditions
Complete papers, sat in one sitting, at the right time of day where possible. The point is stamina and pacing across all three blocks, which another few hundred loose questions will not build. Every paper still gets the full review treatment, which is what makes a mock worth sitting at all.
Final two weeks
JuneTaper, do not cram
Light review of the notebook, a couple of short timed sets, and sleep. Students who work hardest in the last fortnight tend to arrive tired, and at 40 seconds a question tiredness costs more than the revision gained.
If you want to know what the student is actually preparing for in each of those phases, our section-by-section breakdown of the ACER exam walks through all three blocks with real sample questions.
The Three-Step Loop Most Students Skip
We repeat this more often than anything else, and it surprises families more than anything else. Every set of exam questions gets three passes. Most students do the first and stop there, which is why two students can complete the same thousand questions and finish the year in very different places.
Do the questions
Attempt the set properly, under whatever conditions that phase calls for. Everybody does this part.
Review it carefully
Usually skippedGo through every question that was wrong, and every one that was guessed correctly, and work out what the intended reasoning was. Checking a score is not reviewing. A review that takes less time than the attempt did was probably not a review.
Try the questions again
Usually skippedCome back to the same set later and attempt those questions cold. Here is where the learning actually gets fixed, and almost nobody does it, because a set that has been marked feels finished.
These are only some of the strategies we use with our Selective PREP students, and they are the three that transfer most easily to working at home without a tutor in the room.
The Writing Rule: Review Longer Than You Wrote
A student who spends twenty minutes writing a piece should spend more than twenty minutes reviewing and improving it.
The instinct runs the other way. Writing feels like the work, and reviewing feels like admin, so a student produces twelve pieces in a term and improves at roughly the rate they would have anyway.
Reviewing means rewriting weak paragraphs, replacing vague words with precise ones, cutting sentences that repeat an earlier point, and checking that the piece answers the prompt it was given. Six pieces written and properly reworked beat twelve written and filed, and the writing block carries two pieces in forty minutes, so the habit of improving a draft quickly pays off directly on the day.
The Vocabulary Rule: Notebook, Definition, Use It
Every time your child meets a word they do not know, three things happen, and the third is the one that makes it stick.
Write it down
One notebook, kept for the whole preparation.
Write the definition
In their own words, beside it, so the meaning goes through their head before it goes on the page.
Use it next time
The word has to appear in their next piece of writing. That is what moves it from recognised to owned.
This pays into both halves of the paper. Verbal reasoning asks students to separate words as close as dread and foreboding, and a marker reading a persuasive piece notices precision. Over eighteen months a notebook filled at a few words a week becomes several hundred words a student can actually use, which is a different thing from several hundred words they have seen on a list.
If You Are Starting Late
Plenty of families find this page with six months to go, or three. That is workable, and it changes what to prioritise rather than how hard to work.
- Keep the three-step loop even though it feels slow. Cutting it is the most common late-start mistake.
- Put the first weeks into quantitative and non-verbal reasoning, where the gap against school work is widest.
- Start timed practice earlier than you otherwise would, because pacing takes weeks to settle.
- Start the vocabulary notebook on day one. Even a few months of it shows up in the writing.
- Sit fewer full papers and review every one of them properly.
Common Questions
How long does it take to prepare for the selective entry exam?
We recommend 18 to 24 months of steady preparation. That length is less about covering more content and more about leaving room for the review cycle below to actually change how a student thinks, which a short sprint rarely achieves.
What year should my child start preparing?
Students sit the exam in Year 8 for entry into Year 9, so an 18 to 24 month runway puts the start somewhere in Year 6 or early Year 7. Beginning earlier than that rarely helps, since the reasoning the exam tests develops with maturity.
Is six months enough?
Six months of focused work still moves a score, and plenty of families do exactly that. It is tighter than we would choose, because the review-and-retry cycle is the part that gets cut first when time is short, and it is also the part that does the most.
How many hours a week should my child study?
A consistent few hours each week over 18 months beats an intense block near the exam. The routine matters more than the total. Expect the first month or so to go on building the habit itself, with content only starting to stick once the schedule holds.
Do practice questions alone work?
Not on their own. Most students attempt a set of questions, check the score and move to the next set, which skips the two steps that produce the improvement: reviewing each mistake carefully, then attempting those same questions again later.
When do applications open and close?
Applications typically open in early March and close in late April, with the exam in mid June and offers from August. ACER publishes the exact dates for each cycle, so check selectiveentry.acer.org/vic before you plan around them.
Should a strong student still prepare?
Yes. The exam runs at roughly 40 seconds per question and tests reasoning that sits outside the school curriculum, particularly quantitative and non-verbal items. A student used to finishing school tests early can still run out of time here.
Quick Summary
- Start 18 to 24 months out, which lands in Year 6 or early Year 7
- Applications open in early March and close in late April of the exam year
- The exam is sat in June of Year 8, with offers from August
- Every question set gets three passes: attempt, review carefully, attempt again
- Spend longer reviewing a piece of writing than you spent writing it
- New word goes in the notebook with its definition, then into the next piece of writing
The families who do best are rarely the ones who did the most questions. They are the ones who went back over them.
Selective PREP
Build the Right Routine
Our Selective PREP program is run by alumni from Suzanne Cory and Melbourne High. Tutors who sat the exam themselves and know what it takes.
Written by EduVerse Education
Our Selective PREP tutors are alumni of Suzanne Cory High School and Melbourne High School.
Learn about our Selective PREP program